Video Stuttering = Annoying

[Guest]

I am with similar settings, G5 2G DP
4G rams
and play 1080 ts file
VLC always skip frames,

really a shame, because on a PC, 1G P3 are able to play back 1080 ts file with no problem

I got the same problem when <b style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99">vlc</b> 0.8.0 was released.
<b style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99">Vlc</b> 0.7.2 plays high definition files (.<b style="color:black;background-color:#a0ffff">ts</b>, 1080i) on my 2x2GHz with around 60% processor usage with interlace blend. With 0.8.0 that almost doubled to 100 - 110%. With 0.8.4 it jumped once more to consume even more resources.
It never lags or drops frames though but I can't for the life in me figure out what happened between 0.7.2 and 0.8.0 that eats up the processors.

I guess I have to run 0.8.4a now if the digital audio is fixed but it's annoying that something that used to take around 60% now requires anything from 100 - 200%.

[The DJ]

Some ppl seem to be using network shares.
For the last time, the latency of network shares on OSX is so high, that playing files from them is annoying as hell. It's a well known issue, and without VLC downloading a couple MB in advance of the playback it cannot be solved.

Unfortunately this so called "prebuffering" is not possible in VLC at the moment.

[karakal]

In my case, the additional parameters in the smb.conf from scottmacd did the trick. I can now play my files from my smb-Server with Linux on my Mac Mini PPC without any audio-stuttering.

And I don't think, Mac OSX has the problems (why can Quicktime play the same files from the same network locations without problems?) but there is some problem in the VLC code.

The solution with the buffer-settings to 3000ms and more is not useful, because of the delays in reacting to any action in VLC.

And for "The DJ": Many people are using network shares. This is, what a mediacenter and a videoserver is all about....

[The DJ]

The difference is that QuickTime immediatly reads large amounts of data from the share and is not time critical, whereas VLC reads small amounts of data very often, and is time critical.

This makes it much more suited for streaming, but not for file sharing.
What you do when you change those settings on the server, is actually increasing the buffers on the serverside, allowing the server to respond faster to small reads.

[kenny_garlic]

Sorry to pull this ancient thread up again, but I have just bought my first home-NAS and moved my movies there.

I soon found out that movies played back stutter-free with QuickTime yet had hiccups every 4-5 seconds with VLC.

Of course I don´t want to stop using my favorite video player ;) So I set the file-buffering time to 5000ms and voila - instant solution. A 5 second reaction time does not really annoy me, I´d rather have glitchfree playback.

I assume that the caching technique QuickTime uses is not easily applicable to VLC.

However, what could "solve" this issue (or at least, reduce the questions/complaints) could be the simple addition of a simple and "apple-like" cache-parameter that is not hidden in the expert settings but instead presents this setting upfront, e.g. "optimized for local playback" or "optimized for network/share playback". This parameter could set cache times or whatever other useful parameters in the background.

Kenny